If you spent months building an app or SaaS that nobody uses, the problem almost always started before the build. You built an idea you thought was great, and never checked whether enough people had the problem badly enough to change what they do.

You are not uniquely bad at this. It's the most common story I hear, and it is fixable.

I do consults with founders at every stage: people with just an idea, people in the middle of building, and people who have already launched. So many of the ones who launched spent all their money building an idea they thought was great, and then had zero traction, no downloads, no nothing. Most of them have no idea they skipped validation, because nobody ever told them what validation is.

Why do founders build products nobody wants?

It usually isn't carelessness. It's that building feels like progress and research doesn't.

When you are iterating and moving buttons around the screen, it feels like you are doing such important things. If you never checked that your users even want that button, you are actually wasting your time.

I worked at an agency before, and this is what founders brought us. They came in with an idea and no research, and I would think: you have no idea that anyone is actually going to use this.

Three things get mistaken for demand:

• People saying "I'd use that." If you describe a solution and ask whether it would help, they might say yes. If you build it, they might not use it.
• Having the problem yourself. Then you are building for a target market of one person.
• No competitors. Sometimes there is a gap because there is no market there.

What does it mean to start in the solution space?

It means deciding what to build before you understand the problem.

Say parents struggle to coordinate their kids' schedules. You decide to build a calendar and reminder app, and you put all of your time into it. Then nobody buys it, because the thing that really would have helped them was an AI that messages them on WhatsApp. You never built the solution people actually wanted, because you started in the solution space.

What should I do if I already built something nobody uses?

Treat your product as a research tool instead of a finished product.

1. Talk to people who have the problem. Start with their story, before you show them anything. If they already use your app, keep steering them back out of it, because you are asking about them, not about the app. People who have never used it can give you the best discovery for exactly that reason: they can't lead their answers with your product.

2. Then watch them use it. Do they understand what it is for without being told? Can they complete the main task without real confusion? Did anything surprise them, well or badly? Does it actually address the problem you set out to solve?

3. Work out which thing is wrong. Maybe the problem is real and your solution misses it. Maybe the product is fine and you are reaching the wrong people, or saying the wrong thing to them. Or maybe the problem isn't painful enough for anyone to change what they do.

Each answer leads somewhere different: change the product, change who you are talking to and how, or take what you learned into the next idea. It's better to do that now than once you have poured more time and more money into it.

How do I avoid this next time?

Talk to people before you build. Five to seven conversations with the same kind of person, about their problem and not about your idea, will tell you most of what you need to know.

By the time founders come to me, they are often six months in, usually more, usually a year. They have spent months trying to get users without really understanding why it isn't working, and they are exhausted. The research that would have prevented it takes a few days.

Keep reading

How Do I Validate an App Idea Without Building It?

Validation Before Building vs. Building Then Pivoting: Which Is Less Expensive?

I Launched My App and Got Zero Downloads: What Actually Went Wrong?

Learn this with me

From Passion to Product is my free six-week live course and it is built around doing this research before you build. Classes 1 to 6 are all problem work, research, solution and testing, and nothing is scoped for building until class 7.

If you have already spent the months, the same six weeks work on what you have, because the questions do not change.

Join the waitlist to hear when the next free cohort opens, or start with the App Strategy Workbook.